Change in China
Boris Svartzman
The Chinese language has a number of ways of saying “city” and the most common term uses the ideograms for “wall” and “market” 城市 (chéngshì), embracing the distance between city and country. In the past, the city was the center of both imperial and administrative power, was the center and superintendent of trade which was run as an imperial monopoly. Such supervision also extended to social, political and religious domains. Rural areas, with their local traditions and popular culture, were scattered over huge distances and therefore difficult to dominate.
In 1949, when the Chinese Communist Party took over, 90% of the population lived in rural areas. The party exerted its power by taking control of the land, using many ploys, including the traditional argument that land is a gift from Heaven for all men to enjoy, and banning all forms of private ownership. The Party adapted communist ideology to fit the rural nation, and exercised power by granting greater importance to the city, by then filled with workers, than to the farming world.
Preview
Measures introduced for modernization failed, and still there was no change to the breakdown of population between city and country. At the time of Mao Zedong’s death, any idea in China that cities were more important than rural regions was nothing more than ideology. But once the policy to revive the economy (retaining the same political system) was introduced by Deng Xiaoping in 1992, the result was a rural exodus unprecedented in the history of China: 40% of the population was then urban.
The end of Mao’s regime might have raised hopes for families to retrieve properties confiscated after 1949, but subsequent urbanization was built on a second wave of mass expropriation, depriving the people of their past heritage.
In line with Communist theory, the sole purpose of change was to improve standards of living, without any involvement from citizens in decisions made. The Party advocated modern standards and had a set concept of happiness which was imposed on the people. A modern urban environment was an oasis, a mirage in a desert where freedom was nowhere to be found. This pre-packaged lifestyle even includes legislation protecting private ownership which was passed and added to the Constitution… in 2008.
What would China be today if, after the death of Mao Zedong, the focus had been on modernizing rural areas rather than urbanization? I like to think that China could have taught the West a great lesson in history, a lesson in rural democracy. In Western thought, the city has been central to the concept of democracy, while the city in China, in both past tradition and Communist practice, has always been a realm beyond the reach of freedom.
Seeing the destruction of historic city centers in remote areas, and migrant workers exploited by the new middle classes, I have endeavored to show how urbanization has affected the people. China is still a poor country, even if propaganda attempts to prove the opposite. I deliberately chose to ignore the monumental scale of urban development, seeking out pictures on a human scale in the midst of this massive upheaval. I saw human beings, always ready to pick up and move on, with the huge ability the Chinese have to become part of their immediate environment, of the public forum.
Boris Svartzman
